Ch. 2 - The Gift Diffused

A small man sat in a small parlour, partitioned off from a small
shop by a small screen, pasted all over with small scraps of
newspapers. In company with the small man, was almost any amount
of small children you may please to name--at least it seemed so;
they made, in that very limited sphere of action, such an imposing
effect, in point of numbers.

Of these small fry, two had, by some strong machinery, been got
into bed in a corner, where they might have reposed snugly enough
in the sleep of innocence, but for a constitutional propensity to
keep awake, and also to scuffle in and out of bed. The immediate
occasion of these predatory dashes at the waking world, was the
construction of an oyster-shell wall in a corner, by two other
youths of tender age; on which fortification the two in bed made
harassing descents (like those accursed Picts and Scots who
beleaguer the early historical studies of most young Britons), and
then withdrew to their own territory.

In addition to the stir attendant on these inroads, and the retorts
of the invaded, who pursued hotly, and made lunges at the bed-
clothes under which the marauders took refuge, another little boy,
in another little bed, contributed his mite of confusion to the
family stock, by casting his boots upon the waters; in other words,
by launching these and several small objects, inoffensive in
themselves, though of a hard substance considered as missiles, at
the disturbers of his repose,--who were not slow to return these
compliments.

Besides which, another little boy--the biggest there, but still
little--was tottering to and fro, bent on one side, and
considerably affected in his knees by the weight of a large baby,
which he was supposed by a fiction that obtains sometimes in
sanguine families, to be hushing to sleep. But oh! the
inexhaustible regions of contemplation and watchfulness into which
this baby's eyes were then only beginning to compose themselves to
stare, over his unconscious shoulder!

It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate altar the whole
existence of this particular young brother was offered up a daily
sacrifice. Its personality may be said to have consisted in its
never being quiet, in any one place, for five consecutive minutes,
and never going to sleep when required. "Tetterby's baby" was as
well known in the neighbourhood as the postman or the pot-boy. It
roved from door-step to door-step, in the arms of little Johnny
Tetterby, and lagged heavily at the rear of troops of juveniles who
followed the Tumblers or the Monkey, and came up, all on one side,
a little too late for everything that was attractive, from Monday
morning until Saturday night. Wherever childhood congregated to